14 Responses to “MAIG’s Response to NRA Member Increase”

Hitler was a loathsome, little man, and so is Bloomberg. Both of them gun confiscationists too. Bloomberg just hasn’t been able to send anyone to a death camp yet, but he’s working on it, and he has 18 billion dollars, and he has been seen at the White House lately.

Yeah, but how many of those 1.9 million followers will lodge a public comment on the next ATF proposed rule, regulation, information collection or anything they do asking for a comment period.

Like, for example, the recent public comment solicitation about armor piercing ammunition?

Underestimate Bloomberg & MAIG at your peril, they can turn out comments in sufficient volume to punk our community. They have already done so.

They’ve stuck their noses in out of state elections, legislation and they’re picking up names & contact information of followers & soliciting donations like pros. He’s on the wrong side, but face facts – as a city mayor with deep pockets he is affecting political policy on a scale greater than the overpopulated metropolis he inhabits. Greater than gun bloggers & gun blog commenters.

If we want to stop what’s coming, we need to fight like our enemy and do it better.

And I don’t meant to make it sound like I am underestimating Bloomberg. I have been warning of the threat he poses for a long time, and some have laughed. But I don’t consider people on a mailing list equal to people who paid $25 dollars for membership. I have no doubt most of those 1.9 million won’t write letters. But neither will most of Bloomberg’s people. But I do agree, Bloomberg has game on this issue, and we’re in a lot of trouble.

I called one of my senators today. The other one is freshly elected and so they have no email or website up as of yet but I will be contacting them ASAP. My house rep literally got their site up yesterday and I sent my letter already. Will be calling them in a few days to space them.

And then the Dem state legislators have introduced the ‘gun show loophole’ bill and a couple other anti-gun bills. In my state such a thing is a longshot to even get out of comittee let alone a vote and we have a pro-gun govenor who wouldn’t sign it as the people who introduced this crap are fervent obama supporters and she does not care for him or his agenda in the least. but still needs to be opposed. Issue is both my state house and senate rep are also new and again do not have contact info up.

It’s annoying because I can’t yet give my views to 3 of my 5 officials because of the circumstances.

Well, the Senate won’t even be taking up new bills until the 22nd, and then unless that Congresscritter is on the Senate Judiciary Committee immediate action from them is not needed.

Bills have already been introduced in the House, but again they first go its Judiciary Committee. here’s its members page, don’t know if it’s been updated. But pressure on Boehner and the rest of his leadership team, especially though your House Representative, it what really counts. He can stop cold any legislation by never bringing it to the floor for a vote.

Actually they are on the judiciary. Well the list actually is out of date as my rep was replaced by another republican. Does that mean his replacement will be in their as well? I don’t know how that works when it comes to those panels.

In any case he’s arleady extremely pro-gun as it is but I still want to get my message out.

The general rule is by seniority, but there are lots of complications, various freshmen are often given seats, and Team Boehner purged 4 conservatives from important seats so if your House representative is one we’d assume he’s much less likely to get a seat. Or they may try bribing him with one. Who knows, I never want to try to get inside Boehner’s head.

Bob Goodlatte, a lawyer from SW Virginia is chair of House Judiciary. I couldn’t dream of a better person to run gun control issues in the house. In the Senate, well Pat Leahy is from Vermont and while its otherwise super liberal (and full of expats from Massachussets and NY) it’s called Vermont carry for a reason. There is still no single state as gun friendly as Vermont. And many of those libs are really heavily armed and prepared to fight for their independence (remember, when Bush was in office they floated the Texas idea of secession. And like Texas, Vermont was once an independent Republic prior to finally agreeing to be the 14th state. Frankly, I trust Leahy more than I trust chuck Grassley.

Taking a look at the numbers; 100k new “paying members” – this is not necessarily better for us. A lot of this contingent feel that by paying their professional gun lobbyists, pat themselves on the back and proclaim they are strong 2A supporters. Feeling this is enough, they go on their way secure in the knowledge they are true RKBA warriors.

OTOH, Bloomy has mustered 4 times as many “petitioners” he can mine for money & support.

A typical return on investment is 2-3 percent from mailings, emailings, etc. On a particularly important issue to the target audience, 3-5% is a strong turn out.

So, if ATF decides to use the CFR to implement some new interpretation or restriction, the advantage right now is with bloomberg. Plus, there is the very real possibility of fatigue. Too many non-meaningful engagements to gun owners or any other constituency for that matter dilutes our effectiveness. so if there are 2 dozen bills in Congress and 4 comment periods we will quite literally get overrun.

There’s quite a bit of doom and gloom going on in the blogosphere these days. Not pointing fingers here, but do we really need 7 or 8 articles a day about how screwed up things are ? Like some blogs I know with a 4 letter acronym.

Just like you can’t expect the police or firefighters your tax money pays for to follow you around and keep you safe from harm, we can’t expect that paying the NRA dues money is going to keep laws from getting passed. Be ready to pick up the phone and call congress, and have your keyboards ready to type emails. We need help from all aspects of the gun community.

I think you make a good point. The only thing I would suggest is that the fee constitutes some signal of dedication. NRA has been taking steps to think beyond the concept of dues paying members, but I don’t think it’s gone far enough. But dues paying members are a big part of what pay the bills at NRA, which is a large organization that does a lot more than political lobbying.